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The Sea Change of TEST

First off, my apologies for not posting anything this week. Generally, I use my blog writing in the morning as a little “warm up” for the rest of my work during the day (this is after I write in my paper journal, which is just for me). Things have picked up in the last week, though and chances are for about the next six weeks I’m going to have a slightly diminished posting frequency. Again, my apologies for this, but daddy’s gotta bring home the bacon, know what I mean?

In any event, I could not in good conscience not write a blog entry today. I began this blog with the intention of providing those who were interested in a line-member’s perspective of one of the most powerful entities in New Eden. The 24 hours surrounding this blog post, from last night until until tomorrow morning, are so important not only to Dreddit, or TEST, but also the whole Honeybadger Coalition, that I would not be fulfilling the imagined duties I’ve assigned to myself if I did not provide comment.

For those of you who don’t know yet, last night Montolio resigned as leader of Test Alliance, Please Ignore. While I can’t say I’m totally surprised (as Montolio said, leading such a large coalition changes you, and I’m sure he didn’t mean that it changed him for the better), the method and suddenness of his resignation was certainly a tad startling. Leadership seemed to be in a bit of a scramble last night over Jabber and other channels, attempting to calm the masses and let everyone know what was going on. BoodaBooda even hosted a Q&A session for Dreddit members immediately after the announcement.

I was in the Q&A session, but was only able to get a brief glimpse of what was being talked about. Of course all of this had to go down when I was in the middle of a roam (which, as you can see wasn’t terribly fruitful), and seeing as how it was my first time piloting an assault frigate into battle, it was a tad difficult to focus on all the politics going on while still trying not to get my new shiny blown up.

Luckily, BoodaBooda put up a post on the discussion boards (for those with Dreddit auth access) that summarized the whole thing. Booda is now CEO of Dreddit, with Fras taking command of TEST with the help if Ingen. There’s also a new guy taking the reigns of the HBC, and unfortunately I lost the Jabber ping where he introduced himself. I don’t think he’s in TEST (which may end up being a good thing) so I’m not terribly familiar with the guy (sorry, dude!), but I’m sure we’ll be hearing much of his name in the coming weeks.

It seems that TEST is going in a bit of a new direction with all these changes. Dreddit itself will be focusing on providing content for its members, with a new system for squad creation based on particular goals. These squads will be around for a few weeks enacting whatever deviousness they come up with, and then they will disband once their missions are complete. I think this is a fine start in providing some direction for our alliance, and I’ll happily sign up for anything that catches my interest.

The first of these little mini-quests we’re setting out on begins today! It’s also the reason I say the next day or so is going to be an important one for Dreddit. I guess, technically it’s going to be important for all of New Eden, because I’m sure everyone is going to be dog-piling into the Luminaire system all throughout the day. I think we all know why.

Beware, high-sec pilots! Dreddit is coming to Luminaire, and we will have a hand in this event. Obviously, what we’re seeing here is the beginning introductions to the final release of DUST 514. The events that take place today in the Luminaire system will make New Eden history, and we plan on being a part of it.

Perhaps it is providence that last night marked the beginning of a sea change for the HBC.

Speaking of, I’d like to take this opportunity to throw my own two-cents into the discussion. Unfortunately, due to being on the roam, I wasn’t able to contribute to the feverous discussion that was going down on the Dreddit Jabber. Basically, Booda was asking folks what they wanted to do as a corp. There were a lot of great ideas put forth (and a lot of crap ones… seriously guys, I don’t think many of us have time to be a nomadic corp), and I’d like to offer another possibility for content generation that will also help us get a foothold in the new FPS-connected reality that will be coming with the release of DUST.

We all know that eventually, DUST mercs will be a major part in determining sovereignty in null sec. This is a ways off (probably at least a year), but the beginning mechanics are going to bet set into place with the next DUST build, and the fighting that will take place may end up being interestingly close to our current base of operations.

We don’t know what region of low-sec DUST mercs will be fighting in, but there is much speculation that we’re going to be looking at Aridia. If this is true, then I’d like to ask my fellow Dreddit members to direct their attention to the Fabia constellation. That map right there shows you all the temperate planets in Aridia. You’ll also notice that the system of Sakht is a connecting system to null sec, with a gate to 1-S. TEST owns 1-S and it is often an entry point for our enemies into our territory.

My DUST buddy Kristoff tells me that NOS squad has been running around low-sec quite a bit lately, asserting our dominance. I know not everyone is interested in decreasing their sec status, but with the launch of DUST, our Subdreddit bros are going to need a place to call home, and I think it only makes sense that we provide as much support from space as possible to help them get a foothold. If we can gain control of all the temperate planets in Fabia, that means any attacker will have to go at least three jumps to hit one of our systems. This is very important to the DUST meta because every jump decreases the amount of attacking clones who survive the trip through space.

That’s my idea, anyway. It’d be awesome if Dreddit could lock down the Fabia constellation from space once DUST launches. There is a lot of details in an operation like this, but the benefits in the long run would be worth it. I’ll probably write more about this at a later date, but as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, work is piling up so I’ve got to leave it here for the time being.

I am not worried about our new direction. If anything, I’m excited about having some fresh leadership who’ve yet to experience the trials and tribulations that seem to burn out so many (you will be missed, Monty, for sure). I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more individual activity in the coming months from the member of the HBC, and I think this will make for a very exciting experience.